Voters Like Joe Biden. But Are They in Love?

The New York Times Excerpt: On the stump, though, he doesn’t woo voters with sweeping promises or big plans for the future. I found his answer to climate protesters at an event in Des Moines on Wednesday quite telling.

“I got there before any of the other candidates did,” he told a group of demonstrators wearing penguin masks, saying he authored a bill to address climate change in the mid-1980s.

Two days earlier, Beto O’Rourke had released a $5 trillion proposal to combat climate change. At least a dozen candidates say they are willing to consider a carbon tax. Senator Elizabeth Warren would enact a “total moratorium” on new federal fossil fuel leases. Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington is basing his entire campaign on the issue.

But when Mr. Biden delved into specifics, he brought up the 2009 stimulus bill, meandering through a number of ideas to expand renewable fuels, promote wind energy and put electric charging stations on highways.

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Excerpt:
When I joined the press horde covering Joe Biden’s first campaign visit to Iowa this week, I was struck by how often I heard the same refrain. Here’s how Greg Renaud, a retired teacher from Pleasant Hill, put it:

Photo by Lisa Lerer

“I like Joe. We need someone in the first place who’s electable in 2020. Look, my own personal beliefs are probably a little to the left of where he is, but independents are going to be crucial in 2020.”

In my conversations with voters — even those who said they felt strong affection for Mr. Biden — it was pretty clear that practicality, not passion, was the driving force in their support for the former vice president. It was a sentiment that seemed to transcend age, gender and ideological orientation.

Now, I’m generally a cynic. But when it comes to presidential politics, I believe in love. No one enjoys suffering through a bad date — particularly when it’s a date that could keep going for four long years.

That means pragmatic support is generally not the stuff of winning presidential bids. (See: Romney, Mitt; Clinton, Hillary; Kerry, John.)

Of course, given how badly Democrats want President Trump out of office, that instinct to follow their hearts could certainly play out differently this cycle. But with 21 candidates running (oh hey, Senator Michael Bennet!), voters certainly have plenty of time to play the field. And those candidates have time to make their case about why they are best positioned to defeat Mr. Trump.

Mr. Biden is pushing his own electability hard, arguing in his early appearances that he can win back the working-class white voters who hurt Mrs. Clinton in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. He implied that a tweetstorm launched by Mr. Trump Wednesday, after a firefighters’ union endorsed Mr. Biden, was a sign that the White House is afraid of his candidacy.

On the stump, though, he doesn’t woo voters with sweeping promises or big plans for the future. I found his answer to climate protesters at an event in Des Moines on Wednesday quite telling.

“I got there before any of the other candidates did,” he told a group of demonstrators wearing penguin masks, saying he authored a bill to address climate change in the mid-1980s.

Two days earlier, Beto O’Rourke had released a $5 trillion proposal to combat climate change. At least a dozen candidates say they are willing to consider a carbon tax. Senator Elizabeth Warren would enact a “total moratorium” on new federal fossil fuel leases. Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington is basing his entire campaign on the issue

But when Mr. Biden delved into specifics, he brought up the 2009 stimulus bill, meandering through a number of ideas to expand renewable fuels, promote wind energy and put electric charging stations on highways.

Like the climate plans he mentioned, Mr. Biden’s economic plans are largely the kinds of proposals Democrats have pushed for years — ending some corporate tax cuts, protecting entitlement programs, and the “Buffet Rule,” a tax on the wealthy first proposed by the Obama administration eight years ago. On health care, he would protect and expand the current law by giving people the option to buy into Medicare — a position similar to the one Mrs. Clinton took in 2016.

As Mr. Biden made clear in his first campaign speech on Monday, this is a restoration, not a revolution.